Once Betrayed, Twice Shy

At a time

FARAH

By the fourth day, I realise Caspian has started sleeping again.

Not well. Not deeply. But enough that the shadows beneath his eyes have stopped looking carved there.

I notice because I’ve apparently become the sort of person who notices things about him automatically now, which feels less like a conscious decision and more like an unfortunate medical condition.

The castle has rhythms I understand better these days. Guard changes. Meal times. The exact hour the western corridors fill with sunlight. The sound of Marcus arguing with kitchen staff like he’s defending a legal case instead of asking for extra pastries.

And Caspian.

The sound of his footsteps is different when he’s exhausted. Slower. Heavier.

Lighter now.

It unsettles me more than it should.

I’m in the library when he finds me that evening, curled sideways in one of the window seats with three different books spread around me and absolutely none of my attention on the one currently open in my lap.

I hear him before I look up.

“Are you actually reading any of those,” he asks, “or are you just attempting to intimidate the shelves into revealing their secrets?”

I glance up.

He’s standing in the doorway in dark clothes, one shoulder against the frame, looking less like a king and more like a man who accidentally wandered in here while looking for somewhere quieter than the rest of the fortress.

There’s something dangerous about how easy it’s becoming to see him that way.

“I’m researching,” I say.

“You’ve been on the same page for twenty minutes.”

“You were watching me for twenty minutes?”

A pause.

“No,” he says.

I stare at him.

His expression remains perfectly neutral.

“Liar.”

One corner of his mouth shifts.

Tiny. Barely there.

Still devastating.

I look back down at the book before my body decides to do something humiliating in response to that expression.

“The archives are useless,” I mutter. “Half the records about the curse contradict each other.”

“That’s because most of them were written by men who thought sounding mysterious was more important than being informative.”

I snort before I can stop myself.

He walks further into the room, and the bond reacts instantly — warm awareness sliding against my skin, familiar enough now that I don’t flinch from it anymore. That might concern me if I examined it too closely.

So naturally I do not examine it at all.

Caspian stops beside the table and glances down at the books.

“You missed one.”

I blink up at him. “What?”

“The older texts.” He points toward the back wall. “Top shelf. Green spines.”

“I couldn’t reach them.”

A beat.

Then, very deliberately: “You could have asked.”

The problem with Caspian is that sometimes he says things very simply that somehow still feel loaded.

I set the book aside carefully. “I’ve survived this long without asking you for help reaching shelves.”

“And yet the shelves remain unreached.”

“That sounds like a personal attack.”

“It is.”

I narrow my eyes at him.

He looks unbearably calm about it.

Then he reaches past me.

The movement is easy. Thoughtless. One hand braced briefly against the window frame near my shoulder as he leans over to pull one of the books from the upper shelf.

But the sudden closeness catches me off guard.

Heat slides down my spine.

His scent wraps around me — smoke and cold air and something distinctly, unfairly him.

The bond hums low and pleased.

Traitor.

Caspian stills for half a second.

He feels it too.

Of course he does.

The awareness shifts between us, tightening the air.

And then Marcus walks into the room.

“Well,” he says cheerfully, “this looks tense.”

Caspian straightens immediately.

I shut my eyes once.

Marcus looks between us with open delight. “Am I interrupting something?”

“Yes,” Caspian says flatly.

“No,” I say at the exact same time.

Marcus grins. “Interesting.”

“You’re annoying,” Caspian informs him.

“I’m beloved,” Marcus corrects.

“By people with poor judgement.”

Marcus ignores that and walks toward the table, helping himself to a piece of fruit from somewhere inside his coat like he’s been storing emergency snacks on his person all day.

Which, honestly, he probably has.

“What are we researching?” he asks.

“The curse,” I say.

His expression softens slightly at that.

Not pity. Never pity from Marcus.

Just understanding.

“That sounds significantly less fun than what I assumed was happening in here.”

Caspian gives him a look.

Marcus bites into the fruit completely unbothered.

I watch the exchange quietly.

This, too, has become familiar.

The shape of them together. Marcus needling Caspian with the confidence of a man who’s survived doing it for years. Caspian pretending to be irritated in the specific way people do when they’re fond of someone enough to allow it.

Family, I realise suddenly.

Not by blood maybe. But something close enough that it doesn’t matter.

The thought hits strangely.

Because I can see now, with uncomfortable clarity, how easy it would be to become part of this place if I let myself.

That is the dangerous thing.

Not the bond.

Not the attraction.

Not even the curse.

It’s this.

The slow, creeping possibility of belonging here.

My chest tightens unexpectedly.

Maybe Caspian notices. Maybe the bond does.

Because his attention shifts to me immediately, expression sharpening slightly. “What is it?”

I shake my head too quickly. “Nothing.”

He doesn’t believe me.

I can tell by the way his gaze lingers.

Marcus, for once possessing survival instincts, looks between us and abruptly points toward the doorway. “I’ve just remembered I promised not to exist in this room anymore.”

“You never promised that,” Caspian says.

“I’m promising it now.”

And then he disappears before either of us can stop him.

Silence settles again after he leaves.

Softer this time.

I stare down at the open book in front of me without reading a single word.

Caspian remains standing beside the window seat.

“You’re thinking too loudly,” he says eventually.

I let out a quiet laugh despite myself. “That doesn’t even make sense.”

“It does to me.”

That should not do something to my heartbeat.

Unfortunately, it does.

I look up slowly.

He’s watching me with that same difficult expression I still can’t fully name. Not cold. Not guarded, exactly.

Open, maybe.

As open as someone like Caspian knows how to be.

The bond pulses once between us — warm and steady.

And for one terrifying second, looking at him there in the fading library light, I understand with absolute horrifying clarity how people fall in love gradually.

Not all at once.

Not dramatically.

Just like this.

One quiet moment at a time.